This rucksack contains a mobile network for disaster zones

This week at Mobile
World Congress the Vodafone Foundation has unveiled its Instant
Network Mini, an 11kg mobile phone network packed away into a
rucksack that can be deployed in crisis and humanitarian
situations.

Designed in conjunction with Huawei and Telecoms Sans Frontiere,
it's small enough to be carried as hand luggage on a flight and
requires almost no technical expertise to use.

It can be set up by one person in less than ten minutes,
Vodafone told Wired.co.uk, meaning it can be quickly deployed in
remote locations that lack any cellular coverage. Once operational,
the device connects via satellite to a host network enabling up to
five phone calls to be made concurrently on a secure 2G GSM network
that covers a 100-metre radius. SMS text messaging is supported,
although data connections are not. Vodafone explained that this
would congest the network too much, but in future the company hopes
to be able to support 3G and 4G data.

To connect phones to the network, people will need to have a
Vodafone SIM card or a SIM card for a local network partner. In
many of the developing countries that the Instant Network was
designed for, it's common for people to have multiple SIMs that
they switch between to compensate for patchy coverage, which means
there's a high chance they will own a usable SIM. For those who
don't have a SIM card, volunteers will run a public phone point
that can be taken advantage of for free.

In the side panels of the rucksack are phone chargers, as having
the network would be completely useless without juiced-up phones to
take advantage of it. The kit can be charged from a generator or
even a car cigarette lighter, but it doesn't rely on either: in the
back compartment of the rucksack is a fold-up solar panel, which
provides all the power that the mini network needs to run.

The rucksack doesn't replace the main Vodafone Instant Network
(VIM), which last year won the GSMA award for best use of mobile in
emergency or humanitarian situations. VIM is a much bigger product,
and has to be packed into boxes weighing 100kg in total but has an
operating radius of 5km. The Instant Network Mini is four times
less powerful and supplements the service provided by the more
advanced kit in seriously hard-to-reach areas.

The Vodafone Foundation trained 70 volunteers to use VIM and
when Typhoon Haiyan struck in the Philippines last year four
volunteers with two networks were dispatched within 24 hours. Over
the following month, the deployment of the kit enabled 1.4 million
text messages to be sent and 443,288 calls to be made.

Next month Vodafone, in partnership with Telecoms Sans
Frontieres, will be running a trial in Kenya. The Instant Network
Mini will be driven between remote villages, allowing people to
connect for a few hours at a time in order to make mobile payments
using M-Pesa, the popular SMS-based Kenyan banking service.

The rucksack has already been tested and is ready to be deployed
in emergency situations. Vodafone operates in 30 countries and has
partner agreements with networks in 50 more, so it can easily be
connected to local networks across all of these regions. Beyond
this, Vodafone will have to strike up agreements as and when the
kit is needed.